This thread has been set up for any questions or problems you are having with Cargo Ships. Please read the following information BEFORE posting in this thread. Thank you!

Before asking a general question please check the Game Guide Chapter 32 Ships as you may find what you are looking for there.

It is up to you to work out when your friends may be likely to play the game to know where to put someone in the ships itinerary. The game has no way of getting that information for you. So ASK them! You have to also take into account that people need to sleep and that some of your friends may be in different time zones to yourself, some may go on holiday or for short breaks. It will take time to get your itinerary the way you like it, especially if you are not sure when your friends are likely to play. Remember, once you have the itinerary they way that works best for you, you can reuse it the following day as long as you have not unloaded the previous days ship.

If it looks like someone is not doing the ships, or your ship seems to be there for a very long time, ask them if they are doing the ships and when they are likely to be able to check for them. You might resolve this by placing them elsewhere in your itinerary. If they are not going to do them then you might want to ask them if they would be willing to close their port..... they might not know that they can do this. This would stop them from being a port you can use and they will stop getting ships in their port.

Answers to Common Questions:

If your ship gets stuck at a port you can skip that port UNLESS it is at port 30. You can not skip that one, you will have to wait until the ship returns. It will automatically return home when it has been out for 7 days.

Remember skipping a port reduces what the ship will bring back, but you will have to decide for yourself if it's worth skipping one so you can get the rest of the products from the next ports rather than have it stuck and returning with very little.

If this happens to you, we recommend that you change the itinerary for your next ship and make sure that you have someone reliable at port 30 so you can at least skip any previous port and not have it stuck out all week. Then remember to reuse the itinerary the next day for the next ship after that.

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If you are having problems Replacing a port you need to try clearing memcache.

To do that Click Here. A window will open with a list of "unsetting", that is the memcache being cleared. Close that window AND FT if you have it open in another window. Then reload and try again. This usually fixes the problem, however some have had to run memcache more than once.

When container preparation time suddenly changes. Each time you prepare a container the game looks to see how many ships have been dispatched in the last 7 days. That determines your preparation time for that particular container.

When you prepare the next container it checks that list again. If you start out with a shorter preparation time and it changes to a longer one it means that when you first started preparing the containers you had more ships on the dispatch list, but then one of those ships dropped off the list for being 7 days old and that then changes your next container prep time to a longer one because you now have less ships on that dispatch list.

To avoid this happening you need to dispatch a ship every day, you can skip one day in a run of 7 days, as you only need 6 ships on the list for the shortest times, but don't skip any more than that or at some point you will have a gap where there will be less than 6 on the list.

Always check your itinerary after you have finished loading containers and BEFORE you dispatch the ship. There is nothing worse than dispatching it without looking and then finding that port 30 is closed and you can not skip that port.

If you are going to go away for a while and are not able to play, please do your friends a favour and let them know so they have time to swap you out for someone that can play during that time. This is particularly important if you are someones port 30 as that port can not be skipped.

Close your port if you are not doing the ships or are going away on a break. That way your friends will not be able to use you for a port when they are altering their itineraries or if you hare going on a break and they were sending their ship to you they will see your port is closed and know that they need to swap you for someone else or as long as you are not port 30 your port can automatically be skipped by the game. Hopefully your friends are checking their itineraries BEFORE they dispatch a ship.

Can a cargo ship be dispatched without having all of their containers filled? Let's say you are running out of time and know you won't have time to fill the other containers. Can I send it out? Or what if you know you only have time to do half of the containers and then when it returns to port you'll do the other half and keep that as your pattern. Will it work OK? Are their disadvantages to do this? Penalties?

Can a cargo ship be dispatched without having all of their containers filled? Let's say you are running out of time and know you won't have time to fill the other containers. Can I send it out? Or what if you know you only have time to do half of the containers and then when it returns to port you'll do the other half and keep that as your pattern. Will it work OK? Are their disadvantages to do this? Penalties?

Hi imcgowan

Yes you can Disptch the Cargo Ship without filling all of the containers.
It will only return to port once it has visited all 30 of the neighbours on its' itinerary or 7 days have passed.
Have a look at what each container brings (same on all ships) and decide which products you need most of.
We can only send one ship per day, which works out well with having 7 ships, so you can fill different containers on different ships, or prioritise the same containers.
For example I am short on lakes so I know I will be sending fish container out most days but may not send the animal products container every day as, for the moment, I have a surplus of those products.

Thank you so much for your reply. Now I understand the reasoning for buying more than one ship with the same products. So you get to use each ship with not needing to fill them all but to use the ship as you see fit. I like it and I'm glad I bought a new farm to put the ships on since there isn't room on any of my existing farms.

I don't know what holiday you celebrate but whatever it is I wish you the happiest.

Thank you so much for your reply. Now I understand the reasoning for buying more than one ship with the same products. So you get to use each ship with not needing to fill them all but to use the ship as you see fit. I like it and I'm glad I bought a new farm to put the ships on since there isn't room on any of my existing farms.

I don't know what holiday you celebrate but whatever it is I wish you the happiest.

I bought all seven container ships last night, soon after they were released. I installed them on my farm 30, along with over a hundred "large bod(íes) of water. To do this, I moved my cluster of animal buildings toward the center of the farm. I started the first container on the yellow ship. When I came back, all ships, bodies of water, and my animal buildings (etc.) had disappeared. They are not in storage and I tried rebooting and clearing the memcache - to no avail. Help!

Location: UK but i'd rather be somewhere hot and sunny :) with a swimming pool!

Posts: 9,832

Quote:

Originally Posted by gpk

I bought all seven container ships last night, soon after they were released. I installed them on my farm 30, along with over a hundred "large bod(íes) of water. To do this, I moved my cluster of animal buildings toward the center of the farm. I started the first container on the yellow ship. When I came back, all ships, bodies of water, and my animal buildings (etc.) had disappeared. They are not in storage and I tried rebooting and clearing the memcache - to no avail. Help!

Location: UK but i'd rather be somewhere hot and sunny :) with a swimming pool!

Posts: 9,832

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jdnelso

what and when do the neighbors boosting the ships get?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jdnelso

do the ports go in order, or they go out to all 30 at once and u just wait for the 30

Hi Jdnelso,

We do not know what they get , if anything, it has not been mentioned in the notes for them. It might be worth you asking in the new release thread where the developers will see it and my update the notes if they do.

You can see what order the ships go to your neighbours by looking in the Ships Logbook. It will go to them one at a time.